


If You Leave

by Cousin Shelley (CousinShelley)



Category: Wilby Wonderful (2004)
Genre: Canon Gay Character, Canon Relationships, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 17:06:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2780969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CousinShelley/pseuds/Cousin%20Shelley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan decided from the beginning that he wanted to go slow. But being around Duck makes it easy to forget why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Leave

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Maverick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maverick/gifts).



Dan sat on the end of the small motel bed. Duck sat next to him, though not too close, so there was room between them for their hands. Duck had sat closer at first, but moved away after a moment to put a little space between them.

The thoughtfulness of that moved Dan. “I just want to go slowly.”

Duck nodded and squeezed Dan’s hand. “Yeah. Me, too. As slowly as you need.”

He’d taken another motel room, even though Duck had assured him he could stay at his place. He could have the bed while Duck slept on the couch, though he was warned the mattress was old and a little lumpy. Duck’s consideration was funny, when Dan thought about it. He was hardly a blushing virgin who needed to be coddled, and he wasn’t a gentleman, either. He didn’t feel like he deserved such treatment.

But Duck acted like he was something precious, something to be cared for, and that meant everything.

How many times had Duck seen him with another man at the Watch? They’d even talked a few times when they crossed paths there, Dan his awkward self while Duck seemed so pleased to see him, but something about the way Duck looked at him had scared him away. Dan went for the ones that were all about quick satisfaction, just the feel of a hard, male body pressed against his.

And then back to his life, his wife, and pretending for another day. He’d gotten so good at pretending, the idea of not doing it was frightening. And that’s what Duck wanted most--the real Dan. No more pretending.

Dan pulled their joined hands onto his thigh. “How did you do it? I never asked, but I really want to know.”

“Do what? Get the banners wrong?” Duck chuckled at himself and tilted his head, something Dan was coming to realize he did when he was a little nervous.

“How did you handle knowing that your name was going to be in that stupid article about the Watch? I mean, the scandal, the whole . . . outing. You didn’t seem affected by it at all.”

Duck looked down at their hands and rubbed his thumb over Dan’s knuckles. “I was affected. I was kind of relieved.” He shrugged. “I grew up here. If many of the people around here were going to turn against me for being who I am, that’s probably a good thing to know.”

Dan stared at him for a moment, at that uncertain smile, and then he laughed. Duck laughed, too, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he did. Before Dan realized he was doing it, his thumb pressed gently against those little lines, then the apple of Duck’s cheek.

“How can you be so . . . so . . . .”

“Dumb?”

“What? No. You’re not dumb. You’re easygoing. Practical.” _Wonderful._ “You’re just . . . _you_.”

Duck shrugged again with a little laugh, and took the hand on his cheek. He kissed Dan’s palm. “Can’t be anybody else, can I?”

“I managed it. For years.”

Duck’s smile disappeared. “Hey, you know, you did what you had to get by. And it’s in the past now. You know what the doctors said. Dwelling on--”

“I know. I’m not dwelling, just facing facts. It’s okay. I’m . . . good now. I’m all right.” The hospital had kept him on a mandatory hold for three days as they tried to pick his brain and figure out why he would want to kill himself. Most patients would then go on to in-patient treatment until they were deemed no longer a risk to themselves. Dan had finally convinced them that yes, he had tried to commit suicide, all day, but when he was finally able to do it, he’d changed his mind at the last minute.

If the chair hadn’t broken, he wouldn’t have been in the hospital at all. He would have been looking for Duck, to thank him for driving over the bridge that morning and foiling his first attempt. Getting in his mind, where he’d stayed all day, even though Dan tried to block him out. He would have asked Duck out for coffee, and spent as much time with him as he could have.

“I’m all right, thanks to you, you know. Stopping on that bridge, coming to the motel . . . .”

Duck looked down, his smile still nowhere to be found. He was a man of few, well-chosen words, but Dan could see exactly what was going through his mind right now.

“I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I did it even after you came to the motel.”

Duck looked at him, his lips pressed tightly together, and gave one quick nod. “I didn’t help that much if you were still--”

“You’re the reason I _didn’t_ do it.”

Duck’s eyebrows rose in the middle. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I wanted to do it here. Well, not here, in a cheap motel, but anywhere other than from a hospital bed. Because it’s important to me that you understand exactly what you did for me. Okay?”

“Okay.” Duck swallowed and chewed his lip.

“I stood on that chair with the rope around my neck, a second away from kicking it out from under me.”  Dan squeezed back as Duck’s grip tightened. “And then I thought of you, touching my face and looking at me like . . . like you wanted to protect me or something. Looking at me like you _cared_. And I realized that I didn’t want to die.”

Duck wrapped his other hand around their joined ones and leaned closer. Dan couldn’t get over the way Duck looked at him, all the time. Had anyone ever looked at him that way?

“I wanted to find you, talk to you, feel your hand on my face. I wanted to feel that way again.”

Duck had the most expressive face he thought he’d ever seen. He didn’t need words, because Dan could see how he felt in his eyes.

“I went to take the rope off . . . and the chair leg snapped. And I woke up in the hospital, so happy that I was still here.”

Duck pulled him into a tight embrace. “I’m happy you’re still here, too.” He laughed and sniffed, a wet sound, so Dan knew his emotions had gotten the better of him.

Dan didn’t try to pretend to be stoic. Duck deserved better than that, better than more of his pretending. His voice shook. “That’s why it’s okay for you to go home and leave me here tonight. You don’t have to be afraid I’m going to do something when you leave, or that I won’t be here when you come back tomorrow. I will be.”

Duck’s quick exhale was all Dan needed. Everything that had gone so wrong and that had made him want to die seemed so unimportant now, as if it was all just to lead him to this moment.

Someone knocked on Dan’s door at 9 am the next morning. He’d already been up and showered. Looking forward to the day wasn’t something he was used to, and so he felt really good. He beamed to see Duck standing in his doorway, smiling.

“Come on. I’ve got a surprise.”

“A surprise?” Dan said, as he was gently pulled out of the room. “Does it involve coffee? Because--”

“Pastries in the truck, we’ll get coffee on the way. I didn’t know how you take yours.”

“Cream, no sugar.” Dan looked through the bag from the bakery as they drove to the diner. “Oh my, where are you taking me that you thought you needed jelly donuts and bear claws?” Dan wiggled his eyebrows and laughed, amazed at how foreign it felt to do so. Foreign but amazing.

“It’s a surprise, silly. Just stay put.”  Duck hurried into the diner and came back out with two large coffees. Before Dan could even dare to take a drink, they pulled up in front of the building where he’d run his video store.

He licked his lips, unsure of how he felt about whatever Duck had in mind. He’d already emptied the store. He’d already been settled on the thought of going. But now . . . .

“Duck,” he said, shrugging.

“Sell it yet? Or give up the lease, whichever?”

“Not yet. The lease would have automatically ended when I  . . . .”

“Then it’s still yours. You could put everything back, if you wanted.”

Dan stared at Duck, who looked straight ahead at the store. “I could. But . . . I mean, I could, I just . . . .”

“Let’s brighten it up,” Duck said, turning to face Dan. “Lighter walls, brighter displays. Cheerier. You can help or just keep me company. No charge. And if you decide you don’t want to reopen . . . I’ll understand.”

Dan tilted his head, part of him wanting to say no, part of him unable to.

“Hey, I bought you coffee and _bear claws_.”

Dan burst out in a laugh. “You did. And you saved my life, but it’s really the pastry that’s decided things for me.”

Duck shifted toward Dan then, the brightest of smiles on his face, but pulled back. He’d been about to kiss Dan. He knew it was just a spontaneous gesture, because Dan had just made him happy. He wished Duck had done it. He wished Duck could do it in the middle of the diner, or the Loyalist, or the center line of the main street running through town.

  
But most of all, he wished Duck hadn’t pulled back just now.

“You’ve already got the paint in the back of the truck, don’t you?”

“Yeah. And I’ve already taped off the molding and the window glass.”

“You broke in?” Dan nearly spilled his coffee on himself getting out of the truck, but saved it at the last minute.

“No, and yes. You could have me arrested, but my friend on the force actually called in a favor from a locksmith on the mainland, so it was actually done with police supervision.” Duck carried two cans of paint to the door of the shop, then went back to the truck for more, handing them to Dan when he hurried to help. “He felt the need to do me a favor because of my, uh, discretion on a personal matter of his. I opted to go ahead and pay the parking tickets I owed, and have him help me break in instead. Good to have friends, huh?”

Dan nodded. “Yeah, it is.”

“I locked it when I left, so you have to . . . .”

“Oh, oh, good thinking.” Dan let them in with the key that was still on his ring. He hadn’t left it behind. He wondered if that were some kind of sign. Just as Duck said, blue painter’s tape bordered the molding, the outlets and light switches, and the windows.

“So they say that yellow and red make people hungry, subliminally, right? And they’re bright and cheerful. So yellow walls with red trim, and you can put the movie snacks front and center. What’s the point of movie snacks if you don’t rent movies.”

Dan put his hands on his hips. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”

Duck looked down shyly, then knelt and pried a paint can lid off with a screwdriver before smiling up at Dan. “Of course I have. It’s about you.”

Duck stood and put his hand on Dan’s cheek. “You didn’t shave,” he said, obviously pleased.

“No. I used the trimmer attachment that keeps it short. I don’t think it was even long to bother, but I felt like I should. I just wanted a little, because--” Dan knew he was nervously rambling. He swallowed and took a deep breath. “Because you liked it.”

Duck gave him one of those beautiful, full smiles. “I do, like it. A lot.”

Dan held his breath as Duck stepped forward. He thought Duck was about to kiss him, and this time he wasn’t going to pull away. But Duck pressed a kiss to his cheek--his rough cheek--then rubbed his own cheek against it with a soft little sigh.

“Roller or brush?”

“Roller--?” Dan’s mind couldn’t seem to jump from almost getting kissed to thinking about painting technique quite so fast. When he caught up, he said, “Oh, roller. I’d muck up the trim work.”

“But first, coffee, or I’ll muck it up, too. You’ll have red windows, and it’ll look more like a brothel than a video store.”

They sat cross-legged on the floor and had the best breakfast Dan had enjoyed in years. They chatted a little as they ate, Duck talking about growing up there, and how he understood it wasn’t always the most welcoming place to outsiders. Or anybody deemed different. Dan agreed, and talked a little, but only a little, about what it had been like when he first came. Most of those stories involved his wife in some way, and he guessed Duck really didn’t want to hear about that.

And even if he did, Dan really didn’t want to go there.

When they’d finished eating, they took roller and brush and began painting. Duck’s loose overalls were clearly for comfort and mobility, but Dan found himself wishing more than twice that they weren’t quite so loose. Then he’d laugh at himself and keep painting, drawing curious looks from Duck.

They finished the first coat in a reasonable amount of time, and stood back to admire their handiwork.

“Not bad,” Duck said, hands on hips. “You could come to work with me if the video thing doesn’t work out. I can tell you’re not used to using a roller, though.”

“How’s that?” Dan looked at the wall, wondering what made it so obvious. “I did side, side, middle. I thought that was the way. My dad had me paint the den once, and he said . . . .”

Dan trailed off when he realized Duck was smiling at him, trying not to laugh. “What?”

“Your painting technique was fine. You just haven’t done it enough to keep from getting covered in the drips.” He reached up and pulled some drying paint out of Dan’s hair.

Dan felt his hair, to feel small, hard dots of paint like dandruff, were everywhere. “Hazards of painting.”

“No paint in my hair.” Duck rocked on his heels a little, smug. “You’re just messy.”

“It’s easy to not get spattered when you use a brush,” Dan protested. “You gave me the messy job.”

“You picked it.” Duck laughed.

Dan liked seeing him laugh, and he loved the fact that Duck felt comfortable enough to tease him. “I did, didn’t I?

“Just admit you’re messy.”

Dan took the brush from Duck’s hand, looked at it critically, then tapped it again the tip of Duck’s nose. “Oops, guess I am.”

Duck swiped the brush back and acted as if he might do the same.

“Watch it, I’ve got a pretty big nose. You’ll waste all the paint.”

Duck tilted his head, then stepped forward slowly and bumped his nose against Dan’s, transferring some of the paint. “Oops,” he whispered. He stood there for a few seconds, then took a step back, blushing almost as dark as the paint on their noses. “Your messiness is contagious. Look what you made me do.”

_Why am I standing here, staring like a fool, when all I want is--_

Dan took the brush from Duck’s hand, dropped it, not caring where it landed, then took Duck’s face in both his hands. His was a wonderful face, handsome and expressive, and softer than someone might expect. It felt so right to touch him this way, right in a way so few things did.

He pressed his lips to Duck’s forehead. Then against one closed eyelid, then the other. A cheek. He left tiny dots of paint as his nose brushed Duck’s skin with each kiss. He waited for Duck’s eyes to open, for those expressive eyes to look at him with the caring and want that made him feel his heart beating in a way nothing else ever had. Then Dan kissed his mouth, soft and barely there at first, then deeper, tasting him for the first time and wondering why on earth it took him so long.

“Oops,” he whispered against Duck’s lips, when he finally caught his breath. “Look what you made me do.”

It took them the rest of the day to finish the second and third coats, even though the painting didn’t take long at all.


End file.
